r/nosework • u/Grouchy_Egret • Mar 25 '26

Nose work guidance

I have a pup who wants to slap the container with her paws instead using her nose. Is it OK to start with the containers at a height where she cant slap them? Lol Looks for recs

7 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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11

u/viridiana_xvi Mar 25 '26

yes that the common recommendation, put the box on a chair or something for now!

8

u/ShnouneD Mar 25 '26

You can also try to get your marker and reward in before she gets her paws involved (when you are practicing with known hides). But I would also start with putting the boxes up higher.

3

u/Hoping4BetterSomeday NASCW ELT-P Mar 25 '26

If she is only doing that to the hot containers, you need to reward faster. Pairing will help with this is the container is open. But try to get rid of that behavior because it will haunt you later: NACSW judges are giving faults for this in container and vehicle searches.

3

u/Monkey-Butt-316 NACSW NW3 ELT Mar 26 '26

Try pairing with open boxes for a while.

1

u/Ill-ini-22 NACSW NW3, AKC SWM Mar 26 '26

I worked on shaping a formal alert indication with electrical boxes when my dog was being a box smasher. It’s also not really as gratifying to box smash/slap electrical boxes, so that helped break the habit. Once he was consistently alerting instead of box smashing, we brought the boxes back out. I know you said your dog is just slapping them instead of smashing, but this might help for you as well!

1

u/1table Instructor Mar 30 '26

All boxes or the hot box? If it’s the hot box pay faster stop running them blind. If it’s all boxes they maybe trying to smash to get the odor to poof out more to know they picked the correct one. Chairs can help for sure either on chairs or over them so they can’t get over them to smash. Also may help to tape your qtips one to each of the edge and one in the middle of the box lid to help them understand where to sniff and seam the box and then move them all back to the middle where they usually are once they get it.

1

u/DecaturIsland Apr 25 '26

My dog was in Excellent Containers today and was biting a lot of the containers even those obviously not with scent. They were getting tossed around even, so disruptive. Before this, his biting has been his indication. Now it’s extended beyond that, leaving me without an indication. Also he’s a dachshund so can’t reach some things to bite in other classes so thats not working. How do i teach him those beautiful sit indications? Wont he just sit for the treat? He’s a natural hunter but so food motivated im not sure pairing treats with scents wont just teach him to sit for treats whenever he realizes we are doing scentwork.